Instant lottery tickets (e.g., “scratch-off” lottery tickets) are sold at many types of retail locations including, stores, such as grocery stores, general merchandise stores, and the like. Various configurations of lottery ticket dispensers have been proposed in the industry for this purpose, including electronic dispensers that automatically dispense a ticket from a bin or compartment upon receipt of an electronic command signal.
To date, the conventional lottery ticket dispensers have played a purely utilitarian function, namely to dispense tickets. It has not been conceived to incorporate the multi-bin structure of such arrays into a game that is in addition to the games embodied by the lottery tickets stored in the bins. A system and configuration wherein a lottery ticket dispenser array also formed an integral component of a separate game or potential source of an additional prize would be appealing to purchasers and drive sales to such an array as compared to conventional arrays.
The present invention provides a lottery ticket dispenser to satisfy the objective set forth above.